Escalation
by LeviathanRising
Summary: Set soon after the finish of the original Kick-Ass comic, this story chronicles Dave and Mindy's attempts to adjust to every day life, before being tossed back into the superhero world by the resurgence of Red-Mist. Probably some violence in later chapters, and definitely foul language, be warned.
1. Normalcy

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN KICK-ASS OR ANY OF IT'S CHARACTERS, THERE IS NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT INTENDED.

_If you like, review!, If you don't like and have some constructive criticism instead of just flames, review!_

**Anyway, this was just kind of a stream of consciousness thing, I intend to put a little more effort into later chapters.**

Have you ever been through an experience, that at the time, you absolutely hated, and then later-maybe months or even years later-you realized it was one of the best times of your life?

If you have, it was probably something mundane, college, high school, something like that. Not so in my case.

It's been five months since John Genovese died, since he had a meat cleaver buried vertically in his fucking skull. Five months since I had my balls fried by some gang-banger in a hoody. Five months since I saw dozens of men die by the hand of a ten year old little girl with the face of an angel and the ferocity of a devil.

Sometimes I still can't believe I escaped from Genovese's penthouse alive, I should probably be buried in a field somewhere, my poor seventeen year old body riddled with bullets and my nuts charred by a car battery.

I Guess "I Escaped" isn't the best choice of words, I should probably say "rescued", because if it hadn't been for Hit-Girl the aforementioned scenario would certainly be a reality. Hit-Girl. My savior, my foul mouthed, emasculating, sociopathic, pint sized savior.

Sometimes, when I stare at dad across the dinner table, or in the glow of our brand new flatscreen (bought with sympathy from co-workers upon hearing about his son's coma), I wonder what he would say, what he would _do _if he knew half the things I've seen, the places I've been, the things I've lived through.

Sometimes I feel guilty, guilty that despite his shit job and lack of real skills he's tried his damned hardest to give me a good life since the day I was born, and I pay him back by going out at night and hitting mobsters with sticks. Guilty that I secretly envy Hit-Girl's father, and the way that she was raised, the way lived.

Sometimes I feel elated, I feel superior to him, to everyone. I'm a fucking _Superhero_, I helped take down the biggest crime family in the state through the course of a couple hours, while he goes to bed at 8:00 sharp every night, why _shouldn't_ I feel superior?

And then I feel like a jackass for thinking like that, remind myself that I'm _not _a superhero, just some dork in a wetsuit who would be dead if not for blind luck, and had to pretend to be gay to get his crush to even talk to him. Then I cry myself to sleep.

In case you haven't surmised it already, my home life is kind of pathetic, and school isn't much better.

For a few weeks after my big revelation of heterosexuality to Katie Deaumax, I kicked myself for telling her the truth, lamenting that I'd still be hanging out at her house and accompanying her on shopping sprees if it wasn't for my damned honesty. Lately though, I've realized it was probably for the best, it would've come out (no pun intended) sooner or later, it was probably best to get it over with then, and receive my well deserved ass-kicking, instead of just postponing the inevitable.

Katie makes it a point these days to rub up against Carl whenever they walk past me in the hallway, or make blowjob motions with her tongue, or really anything to humiliate me and make me feel like a total jackass.

Her friends still text me hate mail on occasion, I guess when they're bored and have nothing else to do;

_"fuk you douchbag"_

_"go 2 hel fagot" (Particularly amusing considering the entire cause of this was my admitting to NOT being a..well..you know)._

_"u litl perverted freak"_

_"No wunder u had to pretend to be gey, theres no way katie wud ever talk to a geek lik u any other way"_

Were some of the ones I received, among others.

And then, of course, there was the picture she texted me of her with a mouthful of Carl's dick. That was just mean. I Know what I did was shitty, but did it really warrant that level of taunting? I've considered uploading it to Facebook on more than one occasion, but I've never been able to bring myself to do it.

I Guess a delusional part of me thinks there might still be a chance with Katie as long as I don't do anything like that.

Anyway, my life sucks, and through all the suckage, my mind keeps going back to the night at Genovese's penthouse.

Sure, it was scary, hell, _terrifying, _but I felt alive, I didn't feel like the geek that spent all his money on scale models of obscure superheroes, I felt like a _badass,_ beating the shit out of Red Mist, shooting the big man himself right in the fucking tunk, and then watching it all on the news later, knowing that no one would ever know I'd even been there.

Sure, I've been on a few patrols in the last couple of months, but the most exciting thing to happen on any of them so far was playing impromptu counselor to a drunk couple on the verge of physical violence outside a local bar.

And I know it's fucked up, but I actually feel _nostalgic _for that night, despite the fact that my head was still covered in scars from the beating Genovese's goons gave me, my balls would probably never produce sperm again, and of course, Hit-Girl's father had died there, right after revealing his and Hit-Girl's lives had been nothing but a big lie, fueled by boredom and comic books.

Somehow, I doubt Hit-Girl would have as fond memories of the night as I do.

Hit-Girl. After her father's death, she decided to give normal life a shot, she was even going to my school, but I could tell it was a struggle, you could see it in her eyes every time some asshole shoved her in the hallway, or some bitch told her she looked like a drag queen, the burning desire to punch, stab, shoot and dismember.

As hard as she tried, I think we both knew it would be an impossible battle, because we knew something neither her mother nor step-father did, Mindy McCready wasn't real, she didn't exist, she never had, there was only, and ever had been, Hit-Girl.

She had never really hung up her mask, she was wearing a mask now, what she had hung up was her true face, and there was no way it was going to stay hung up for long, sooner or later Hit-Girl was coming out, I just hoped it wasn't too ugly when it happend


	2. Mindy Gets A Tutor

"Right, so then _x _is….".

"X".

"Damn it Mindy, stop being a smart-ass, if you don't wanna get kicked back to the fifth grade at least _try _to work with me here!"

"I Don't know Dave!, X is fucking X, what the hell do you want me to say?"

"Didn't your dad ever teach you anything besides how to kill a gang-banger with his own dick?"

"Yeah, he taught me 2+2=4, Hitler lost World War II, and all that shit."

I Hung my head in defeat, I hadn't expected Mindy to astound me with her knowledge of Pre-Algebra, or be able to recite every presidential address of the last thirty years, but this was truly sad. Her mathematics skills were on par with those of a six year old at best, and she had believed Julius Caesar to have been King of England during the American Revolution, until I corrected her.

None of it was her fault of course, being raised by an absolute lunatic intent on living out some deranged, blood-soaked fantasy doesn't leave much room for conventional schooling, and in her defense, she could name every movie John Woo had ever made, and recite pretty much every Clint Eastwood movie in history by heart.

The first time we saw each other since I dropped her off at her mother's house four months ago was the day she joined my school, I found her out back between classes viciously punching a dumpster, her face purple with fury, I considered asking her what in the hell she was doing, but decided to hold off on it lest my face become the new outlet for her rage.

Once she had cooled off a little and sat on the ground, wiping her bloody knuckles off on her jacket and letting of a colorful string of swears, I decided it was probably safe to approach her, though I still took great caution in doing so.

"So, uh…" I Finished my sentence by gesturing to the dented dumpster to my right.

Mindy had stood, eyes fixed on me, and I began calculating the distance between myself and the back entrance to the school, wondering if I could get to it before she got to me.

"Fucking _Assholes!"_

She turned and sent a near by trashcan flying about six feet with a powerful kick. I Winced.

"W-Who?"

"Every fucking person in this whole cocksucking school!, If they had any idea what I could do to them with my bare hands I bet they'd show me some god-damn respect! So I don't know when they signed the declaration of independence, So I can't do long division, who the hell cares?"

She had gone on to rant about her classmates laughing at her for not knowing the answers to several questions, and vividly describing the several things she would love to do to their poor, seventh grade bodies if she had the chance.

I Had offered to help her find a tutor, but she would have none of it, too damn proud, classic Hit-Girl.

Finally, as a last resort, I had offered to do it myself, it was the least I could do for her after all she'd done for me, unfortunately, it wasn't going so well so far. Her knowledge was even less than I'd anticipated, I thought we'd start with some basic pre-algebra, but I could see we were gonna have to go further back than that.

"Mindy, have you asked Marcus to help you with any of this?"

Mindy rolled her eyes at me.

"Marcus doesn't have _time _to help me with school work Kick-Asshole, he's to busy doing what I wish more than anything I could be doing, taking down bad guys."

Every time I'd seen her lately, she'd taken a while to complain about how much she hated school, and how all she wanted was to be Hit-Girl again, though I was adamantly against it, there was obviously nothing I could do to stop her if she decided she really wanted to put her mask back on. So far though, she seemed to be heeding my advice.

I Pinched the bridge of my nose.

"Alright, alright, let's just..lay off the math for a little while, wanna do some history?".

"Alright, yeah, cool."

"Okay, what do you know about Civil War?".

I Knew her social studies teacher was doing a Civil War unit at the moment, so I figured this would be a good place to start.

In response to my question, Mindy just stared at me and blinked.

I Sighed.

"I Guess we'd better hit the books then."

I Reached into my backpack and rummaged around until I found the thick, heavy American History textbook I was looking for, I pulled it out, and slapped it on the table with a thud.

Mindy groaned.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The glow of my laptop lit up my face as I scrolled through the dozens of messages Kick-Ass had received in the last twelve hours or so. They ranged from simple fan letters, to requests for help, even to girls asking me out on dates. As tantalizing as that was, and as hot as some of them were (yeah, there were pictures), there was obviously no way that could work without me blowing my secret identity.

"Dave!, I'm leaving, there's some pasta in the fridge, or you could order some pizza if you want, I'll see you tomorrow okay pal?"

"Okay dad!"

When I looked back at my screen I realized I had received a new message, expecting more of the same, I reached to click it, and when it opened, a chill ran down my spine.

It was from Red Mist.

"_Dear Kick-Ass, you think you're something special don't you?, You tanned those fucking faggots you hang out with now think you're the shit, but you are nothing except sad and alone._

_Me and my friends are going to find out who you are and fuck you up bad. We're also going to find out the names of the people you love and make them rue the day you ever were born._

_You should have anticipated this when you started this super-cunt crap. It's not just heroes who appear in these books and everyone loves a bad guy._

_As a great man once said;_

_Wait until they get a load of ME."._

**Yep, so there's that, kind of a short chapter, and the last bit was just pulled from the comic, but I promise the next one'll be longer,and I think maybe Red Mist will make a physical appearance. Anyway, thank you all so much for the reviews and follows, they are much appreciated!**


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